Abstract
Letter identification in four-letter words, four-letter nonwords, and single-letter displays was tested using a two-alternative, forced-choice procedure. The nonwords were constructed to be pronounceable and orthographically regular. All displays were tachistoscopically presented without pre- or postexposure masking fields. The mean proportions of correct choices were.749 for letters,.735 for words, and.671 for nonwords, with the latter proportion being significantly smaller than those for the other conditions. The relatively high performance for letters was attributed to the absence of masking fields in the present study, since masks have been shown to interfere more with letter processing than word processing in similar studies. The superiority of words over regular nonwords was used as evidence to support the hypothesis that the perceptual unit in reading can be at least as large as a four-letter word.
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This research was supported in part by funds from Biomedical Sciences Support Grant RR-07037 from the National Institutes of Health, University of Kansas General Research Grant 3294-5038, and Grant MH 24637-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. This investigation was initiated while the second author was supported by a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Participation program grant awarded to the Department of Psychology of the University of Kansas for the summer of 1973. The authors thank Glen Taylor for his assistance.
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Juola, J.F., Leavitt, D.D. & Choe, C.S. Letter identification in word, nonword, and single-letter displays. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 4, 278–280 (1974). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336725
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336725